Introducing the fundamentals of social media: Be genuine

I recently wrote an article for the International Association of Business Communicators’ CW Bulletin about the ten fundamentals of social media every charity and nonprofit should know. I am also sharing these ten fundamentals here in a series of ten posts so that I can go into more detail about each of them than I could in an article and so we can discuss them individually. I should note that while my audience for the article was people involved with charities or nonprofits, these fundamentals are relevant to everyone on social media and any small t0 mid-sized business or organization.

Here is the first post in the series.

Be online who you are in real life

Being genuine and authentic is crucial to build trust and credibility. For individuals, you should seek opportunities to meet people you only know online. Only by doing so can you take your relationship to a new level and have the opportunity to fully realize its potential. For this to be possible, you must be the same in real life as you are online—or else other people will quickly realize your online persona is not who you really are. For an organization, people must see that you are living your mission and your brand.